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The First ASEM Labour and Employment Ministers Conference (LEMC) in Potsdam 2006 created the basis for a new central platform for an employment and social policy dialogue between Asia and Europe. Accordingly, all 45 ASEM member states should become involved to jointly discuss possible solutions for shaping the social dimension of globalisation.



At the Second ASEM LEMC in October 2008 in Bali, it was decided to establish projects aiming at exchanging experiences, expertise and best practice in the fields of training and employability, social security and labour migration as well as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In accordance with the principle of "issue-based leadership", Germany has taken on the cooperation project "Cooperation in the Field of Corporate Social Responsibility".



As such, a high level conference was convened entitled “Shaping CSR – Opportunities for the Well-Being of the ASEM Workforce” at Potsdam, Germany, 16-17 March 2009. Participants who attended this conference were distinguished government officials from the ministries of labour and employment of the 45 ASEM member countries.



For this significant event, UNI Apro Regional Secretary, Christopher Ng, was invited to speak at one of the round table discussions, “CSR: Competitive and Location-Specific Advantage versus Alleged Protectionism”. In response to this topic, he highlighted the importance of knowing the “sincerity of corporations by their commitments to their own employees, to the community around them and their customers which have enabled them to derive the revenue and generate profit”. Hence, he reiterated that the concerns should not be focused solely on identifying the motivations of CSR among corporations but should instead be channelled to understanding and improving the actual practice and implementation of CSR in corporations.



Zooming in specifically on trade unions’ concerns, he brought up that the main worry with regards to the practices of CSR is that very few CSR policies or statements have commitments to labour related issues.



“Thus far, most discussions about CSR or CSR commitments are limited to those about environments and ‘do good thing’ such as supporting sports or contributing to charities. If there are, it avoids commitment to critical issues, namely - respect for employees rights to join trade unions and collective bargaining. To the trade union movement, this is essential to enable Corporation to discharge one of their basic social responsibilities, which is to ensure that their employees are able to enjoy an ILO defined decent standard of work and employment.”





(click on related files to read Chris' full speech at this conference)